Field
The present application generally relates to dental planning, and more particularly to user interfaces and associated technology for case designing in dental prosthetics.
Description of Related Technology
The use of computer systems to design dental prosthetics has increased in recent years. The computer systems allow a dentist, dental technician, or other operator to design dental prosthetics for individual patients. These individual prosthetic designs are often called “situations,” “dental plans,” or “prosthetic plans.” Operators using the computer systems can design plans based on a library of the teeth shapes and positions, patient data, and available equipment and hardware. For example, an operator may have at her disposal 3D models built based on scans of gums, bones, implants, dental models, etc. The patient's anatomy can define aspects of the dental plan. For example, desired symmetry with other teeth and antagonistic teeth help define the functional and aesthetic aspects of the dental plan. Based on these data, the operator may make a custom dental plan for the patient. All of this is typically done using a mouse and a two-dimensional computer interface.
A problem with the approach described above is that it may be difficult to manipulate the inputs to the dental planning software (such as the patient-specific data) and the various aspects of the dental plan. Together, all of the inputs to the dental planner, including the patient-specific data, combined with all the aspects of the desired dental plan might be called the “dental data.” In order to visualize the relative placements, all of the various aspects of the dental data would be rendered in a manner that collocates them on the computer screen such that they overlap on the visual display. The overlapped nature of the interface makes it very difficult to select and/or manipulate the various aspects of the dental data.
There are also problems with the individual manipulation of the various aspects of dental data. For example, when working on a bridge, it is important that the buccal cusps of the teeth on the bridge are aligned. Manipulating various pontics, or units, that make up the bridge when manipulating the shape, position, and size of the units may cause, among other problems, misalignment of the buccal cusps.
These problems and others are addressed by the systems, methods, and devices and computer-readable media described herein.